Kings of the Kalmar Union
Christopher of Bavaria survives
1442 - 1476: Christopher III (Wittelsbach) [1]
1476 - 1506: Christopher IV (Wittelsbach) [2]
1506 - 1511: John II (Wittelsbach) [3]
1511 - 1515: Alexander I (Wittelsbach) [4]
Kings of the Kalmar Union and Grand Dukes of Muscovy
1515 - 1530: Alexander I (Wittelsbach) [4]
Kings of the Kalmar Union
1531 - 1536: Alexander II (Stuart) [5]
1536 - 1562: Jakob I (Stuart) [6]
1562 - 1574: Alexander III (Stuart) [7]
Emperors of Scandinavia
1574 - 1598: Alexander III (Stuart) [7]
1598 - 1620: Ragnar II Alexander (Stuart) [8]
1620 - 1629: Eric XIV (Stuart) [9]
1629 - 1651: Eric XV (Stuart) [10]
1651 - 1681: Eric XVI Alexander (Stuart) [11]
1681 - 1700: Eric XVII Canute (Stuart) [12]
1700 - 1732: Eric XVIII Ragnar (Stuart) [13]
1732 - 1744: Jakob II (Stuart) [14]
1744- 1778: Ingrid I (Stuart) [15]
1778 - 1783: Karl III (Stuart) [16]
1783 - 1815: Eric XIX (Stuart) [17]
1815 - 1818: Karl IV Alexander (Stuart) [18]
1818 - 1821: Gustav I Olafson (Trolle) [19]
1821 - 1853: Karl V (Wettin) [20]
1853 - 1864: Eric XX Augustus (Stuart) [21]
1864- 1879: Olav I (Stuart) [22]
1879-1915 Christina I (Stuart) [23]
[1] After getting all three monarchies (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) under his rule in 1442, Christopher "of Bavaria" became the third king of the Kalmar Union. He was generally known as a strong monarch and managed to keep the three nations united throughout his reign. However his reign was marked with countless peasant rebellions and conflicts with Swedish nobles who opposed what they considered "Danish rule" (although Christopher was German and the Kalmar Union was established in Sweden although Copenhagen was it's capital). Christopher died in 1476 leaving five sons and three daughters with his wife Dorothea. His eldest son Christopher succeeded him upon his death.
[2] Christopher won the throne after a short power struggle with his other brothers. Being the oldest of the four he had gained much from watching his father rule. He made it his life's mission to fuse Norway, Denmark and Sweden closer together. To do this he began to encourage the families intermarry, merchants to trade with each other and began to centralize the military. Late in life he used this military to expand into the Baltic coast. He died during one such campaign outside Riga.
[3] Christopher IV only had daughters and since the Kalmar Union had officially adopted Sallic Law under Christopher III, he was succeeded by his younger brother John II. Christopher and John did not get along with each other at all when they were growing up, John envious that his older brother was the heir and not him. John even created a lie that Christopher was illegitimate to try to gain the throne for himself though this failed and Christopher became king. Ironically, John's reign was to be a continuation of his older brother's as he extended his campaigns in the Baltic coast. After suffering a heavy loss against the Teutonic Order in a failed attempt to conquer Koningsberg, John officially extended the Baltic campaign and returned home. He died shortly thereafter of fever at age 59 and leaving no legitimate children was succeeded by his younger brother Alexander.
[4] Alexander ascended to the Kalmar thrones after the death of his older brother. His ambition for greater territorial expansion almost drew him into war with Poland. However, he quickly married the King of Poland's daughter and gained an alliance with the powerful state. Alexander moved his attention even further westward and styled himself Grand Duke of Muscovy. The Kalmar and its Polish allies overwhelmed the Muscovite armies and captured the Grand Duchy just before his death in 1530. His death left the Kalmar in crisis. He left no children and his brothers were all dead.
[5] Following the death of Alexander I, the Muscovy returned to the Rurikids with Ivan "the Formidable" taking the throne. After a short interregnum where the Kalmar Union was governed by a council of nobles, it was decided that the Union would invoke "semi-Salic Law." Since Alexander I was the last male line descendant of Christopher III, the succession law was re-written to allow the descendants of Christopher's daughters to succeed to the throne. Alexander, Duke of Ramsey, the second son of James III of Scotland and Margaret, Christopher III's eldest daughter, and younger brother of James IV of Scotland was offered the throne on the condition he had to renounce his rights to Scottish succession. Alexander accepted. His reign though short restored peace to Kalmar and helped it secure an alliance with his brother and Arthur II of England, the monarchs of the two British countries as well as Charles IX of France to oppose the growing threat of Charles V's Habsburg Empire. Alexander died after ruling for five years and the throne passed to his only son James.
[6] Named after his grandfather and uncle in Scotland, Jakob (James) first commissioned a series of expeditions to find Vinland after hearing of Portuguese and Castilian exploits in the New World. However, looking for Vinland took a back seat when he got involved in the War of Pomeranian Succession in 1555, siding with Karl of Brandenburg against Karl of Habsburg. This war, however, was eventually hijacked by the Reformationists, turning it from an internal Imperial affair to a European-wide civil war. While Brandenburg and the Empire announced an armistice, peasants and merchants from all over Europe revolted and sided with the Reformationists, pitting monarchs and nobility against commoners. Jakob was killed when his carriage was barraged with splinter from Danish Reformationist cannon fire.
[7] The only son of Jacob I, Alexander III from the moment he received to throne sought to avenge his father's death. This was done by declaring the Kalmar Union a Catholic nation and deporting many of the Reformationists (most of them in Denmark) to northern Germany. This further enraged the Holy Roman Empire who controlled the land the dissenters were sent leading the new Holy Roman Emperor Philip I, another staunch Catholic monarch who resented "heretics" being sent to his empire, to declare war on the Kalmar Union. Alexander assisted by France, England and Scotland (these three countries along with Kalmar were called the "Quadruple Alliance") won the war and Philip was forced to allow the new Reformationists in the HRE. Shortly after victory, Alexander and the Riksdag passed the 1574 Act of Consolidation transforming the Kalmar Union into one unified Scandinavian Empire, with Alexander naming himself Emperor, and the capital still at Copenhagen. The rest of Alexander's reign was prosperous and relatively peaceful save a minor skirmish with Ivan the Formidable. He also became a patron of the arts and sponsored the famous Swedish playwright Oskar Bystrom who wrote many tragedies, comedies and histories including a (largely fictitious) play called "King Eric" about Eric of Pomerania the second King of the Kalmar Union. Alexander died in 1598 and left the empire to his eldest son Ragnar Alexander is remembered as the founder of the Scandinavian Empire (although Margaret I was technically it's first monarch being the first Queen of the Kalmar Union) and was given the epithet "Alexander the Good," "the Great" obviously being taken.
[8] Ragnar took the regal number in honor of the famous Ragnar Lodbrok and his father. He pushed for a common "Scandinavian" identity and continued his father's push for a Scandinavian culture. This flourished in his reign. He is often referred to as 'the Bloody' due to an ongoing war with Ivan the Formidable. He appointed his brother Eric as his successor. The War with Ivan consumed much of his later reign and the Imperial Navy/Army became a strong presence in the Empire. Ragnar died in a storm off of Gotland.
[9] Eric took the renal number "the fourteenth" based on a fictitious history of Scandinavia as it was unknown how many kings before him were really named Eric. A strong and capable monarch he was nearly fifty upon assuming the throne and an accomplished general and sailor. He was originally not supposed to become Emperor but this changed when Ragnar's only son Canute drowned as a teenager. Eric was known as "the peacemaker" for ending the war his brother started with the Russians and signing a peace treaty with Tsar Ivan V, the son of Ivan the Formidable, and married his younger daughter Virginia off to him. Eric's elder daughter Princess Erika played a major role in her father's reign and served as regent alongside her husband Peter Marcusson when her father was away in Russia for a few months. Eric died after less than ten years on the throne and was succeeded by his only son Eric XV shortly after he married him off to Crown Prince Canute's widow.
[10] Eric XV ruled for twenty two years and nothing of note, good or bad happened during his reign. He was succeeded by his son Eric XVI Alexander
[11] Eric XVI Alexander inherited his father's throne in 1651 and immediately declared war on Tsar Ivan VII of Russia. The war lasted ten years and Ivan VII (1662), his brothers Peter I (1665) and Dmitriy I (1669) all died during the war. The war ended in 1671 with victory for the Empire of Scandinavia. The new Russian Tsar Peter II had to accept a treaty heavily slanted towards to Scandanavia. After the war, Eric XVI ruled for another twenty years before his death in 1681. He was succeeded by his son Eric XVII Canute
[12] Eric XVII ruled for nineteen years but had a mostly quiet reign except an attempt by the Russians to stop the payment of thier mandated treaty payments. Eric XVII's quick and decisive action which saw Russian Tsar Peter II hung, drawn and quartered after his capture during the battle of Moscow. In 1700, Eric XVII died from a sudden heart attack. He was succeeded by his son Eric XVIII.
[13] Eric XVIII would see the decline of Scandinavian power in the Baltic region. When Eric tired to centralize more of the administration the serveral people in the outlying regions resisted, especially in Gotland. The Gotlanders rebelled and Eric set to crush them, however commercial interests of Polish merchents from Gdansk and Królewiec brought the Kingdom of Poland, which had grown in power after defeating and annexing the old german crusader states, into the war. After several years and terrrible defeats Copenhagen was surrounded and cut off from the country. The peace treaty gave Polish merchants free reign, left the southern Baltic coast under Polish control, and left Gotland an independent republic under Polish protection. Russia would them break free of the treaty and secure its hold on Finalnd. Eric would spend his remaining years securing his hold on power and starting the beginnings of absolutionism.
[13] Jakob II's ascension broke the streak of kings named Eric as his elder brother Crown Prince Eric predeceased him by one year. His ineffective reign saw a futile attempt to regain lost territory from the Russians and the Polish but no success and the once-great Scandanavian Empire suffered even more losses against the rising powers in the Baltic Region. To make matters worse, Eric only fathered one legitimate child, a daughter named Ingrid. Since Scandinavia used Sallic Law at the time this made Eric's second cousin the mentally unstable drunk Karl "the Mad" duke of Östergötland the next in line to the throne. Fearing that having Karl on the throne would mean a sure loss of even more land and perhaps even the fall of the Scandinavian Empire, Jakob acted quick to have Sallic Law repealed by the Riksdag and it replaced with male-preference primogeniture, the succession system used in England and Scotland, the country the Stuart dynasty hailed from (in fact Alexander III tried to change this under his reign too but it failed in the Riksdag). In the end Jakob got his way and the succession rules were changed allowing his 21-year-old daughter Ingrid to succeed him upon his death in 1744.
[15] Ingrid has many associated nicknames. The one that has lingered on the most is 'the Black'. Ingrid adhered to a principle that the Scandinavian Empire should be feared and respected - not weakened. To this end she gave more power to the Riksdag and sponsored colonies in "Darkest New World". Some of these colonies became prisons. She reformed the succession line and took her third cousin, Karl, the son of Duke Karl the Mad as her heir early on to avert problems. Ingrid struck at the Russians with the Lightning War, formally annexing the Baltic Region, and instigated turmoil in the Russian-Polish Alliance. There have been rumors about Ingrid's personal preferences but this is always done in hushed tones due to Ingrid's 'creative punishments'. Towards the end of her term she became focused on democratic and social reforms. She died of old age.
[16] Karl (Charles) was picked to succeed to the throne as he was the closest living relative by proximity of blood to Ingrid, who had no children of her own. Karl had a rather short and uneventful reign and continued the reforms of his predecessor Queen Ingrid. He was assassinated by a member of the nobility and succeeded by his eldest son Eric.
[17] Eric would be remembered as a brutal reactionary. Although he initally harboured distrust to the nobility the Austrian revolution and its brutality made him harbour great distrust of liberal ideals. With supported of the elite dominate Parliament he established a secret police and participated in the Coalitions to crush the revolution. The revolution would prevail however, spreading liberal democratic goverments on the continent. Scandinavia survived because of the Baltic, though Jutland and the Southern Baltic territories were lost. He allied with Britian, the other surviving monarchy in Western Europe and focused on protecting the "natural order".
[18] Karl/Charles IV was a reactionary though to a less extent than his father Eric XIX. Nevertheless, he was disliked by many Scandinavians who wanted freedom from their government. Like the revolutionaries in most European countries however, Scandinavian liberals did not want to scrap the idea of the monarchy altogether and instead supported Gustav Olafson of Trolle, Karl's cousin who favored a limited monarchy with a constitution and a more democratic Riksdag that represented the common people more than the nobles. As Karl's unpopularity increased, Gustav Olafson of Trolle assembled an army and on February 21, 1818 deposed him sending him to exile in Britain.
[19] Karl's cousin through is aunt, Christina, and son of Olaf Anderson of Trolle. Gustav Olafson was proclaimed Emperor once news of Karl's departure reached the Riksdag. However, infighting among the membership of the Riksdag, mainly between the Workers' Party and the Association of Guilds, caused the country to be ungovernable. When the supporters of the Workers' Party and the Guild Members clashed against each other and rioted, Gustav fled Scandanavia for Pomerania, Gustav ordered his army to shoot at parties. A three-way civil war resulted, and Gustav was killed (ironically) by friendly fire while travelling from his palace to the army barracks.
[20] After Gustaf's death Karl, youngest son of Saxon elector was choosen by Riksdag as new king of Kalmar Union as closest cousin of Karl IV.
[21] Eric was the son of Emperor Karl IV and spent the years trying to retake his father's throne. When "Karl V" died Eric led a small army and managed to take the capital. He would spend the rest of his reign trying to resecure the old order. He decreed that Gustav and Karl "V" were never true Emperors.
[22] Olav was the cousin of Eric whom assumed the throne. In his term the Worker's Party and the Association of Guilds became formalized political parties (with the latter being the Labor Party over time). He did oversee the formalization of Greenland and Iceland as separate entities of the Scandinavian Realm. Ingridstad (OTL Ghana) became an associated state. Olav pushed for democratic reforms. He was pulled into the German Wars as the Holy Prussian Empire fell into revolution and managed to conquer Jutland (again) through a series of coordinated Naval-Army attacks. Olav appointed his _________, ______ as his heir. The Conservative Party came into existence in his reign. He abdicated to pursue a career as a historian.
[23] When her father abdicated she was initially not favored as the heir to the Empire, due to both her gender and tradition. She was allowed to take the throne only after she made an impassioned speech in Copenhagen in defense of herself and women in general. She was a incredible orator with one man describing her voice "Like melted chocolate" and her speeches "like poetry that could grab any man's favor". Christina's rule was defined by the various ethnicities vying for independence and an end to the Empire. Most notable was The Finnish Revolt where ethnic Finns tried to establish their own country after centuries of Swedish-then-Scandinavian domination. She initially tried to talk them down but after the popular revolution laid siege to Helsinki she was forced to call in the Caroleans (A former Swedish Religious order turned pre-War Special Forces). The Finnish Revolt was supressed just as suddenly it began. Its leaders were arrested and executed, thousands more were also arrested and the Finns again plotted for revolution. The Finnish Revolt was followed by The Norwegian Spring which was itself followed by the Swedish Fall. To keep her families Empire together she began to decentralize it. She established local Congresses in Stockholm and Oslo and began to delegate them minor powers. She was assassinated by a Finnish Nationalist during a assembly in Helsinki. Ironically, she was there to discuss giving the Finns more power over their own affairs. She left a astounding 8 children born to three different fathers.
